Massive Changes That Will Change Hearthstone

For the past year or so, Hearthstone has been largely criticized for the rate at which the system distributes legendary cards, as well as the high price the game asks of players who wish to remain competitive. With three expansions a year now, some with a significant amount more legendaries than other expansions (Journey to Un’goro launched with 23 different legendaries,) fans have begun to grow restless.

Enter Hearthstone director Ben Brode. Today, he announced that a number of things will change with the next expansion due out later this year. Quite possibly the biggest update he provided, is that duplicate legendaries will no longer be received when opening packs. This is huge news for players, as few things are more disappointing that spending all of your hard-earned dust on a nice new legendary, just to receive it in the next pack you open up later that day. It makes the consumer feel like all of the hard work they put in to get that card didn’t matter at all, and now it’s worthless.

Luckily this will not be an issue much longer, and not being able to receive a legendary you already own in a pack is a grand step in the right direction at making this game more player-friendly. This has been something the fans have requested for a long time now, and it is finally happening.

Another nice feature soon to be added is that when opening packs, you can no longer receive the same copy of any card when opening up a pack. That means no more than one of each card when you open up a pack, and I am very thankful for that. More than once I have received two of the same common card, and that is not a fun thing to receive.

Also announced was that when expansion launches, all players will receive a legendary card when opening packs, within the first ten packs opened. There has long been rumored to be a type of “pity rule” that says you will receive a legendary card if you do not receive one after opening up thirty to forty packs. Receiving one after opening up only ten packs after an expansion drops is a really nice bonus that I am sure fans are going to love.

It has been said that these changes will take effect when the next expansion goes live, although there has not been a date set for that yet. If history tells us anything, we are likely to receive another expansion as we have had an August expansion every August since 2015, and in 2014 Curse of Naxxramas was released towards the end of July. Nothing else is known about the expansion, aside from our own wild speculation.

Personally, I think it would be cool if they did a theme that incorporated more demon cards into it. Like an “evil expansion.” With cards like Krul the Unshackled, I would really enjoy having more options at my disposal when it comes to what I have in my hand at round 9.

I would also like to see a water themed expansion, maybe one that incorporates Vashj’ir? I feel like Blizzard has done a lot more with a lot less, just look at what they did with Mean Streets of Gadgetzan.

What type of expansions would you like to see released in the future? Are you happy with the upcoming changes? Any unannounced changes you wish they would make? Let us know in the comment section below!